“It is a woman who is now in charge of research and of numerous applications relating to radioactivity . . . Helping her and sharing the same work, is a whole staff of women doctors and university graduates.” This is how a female French journalist described Marie Curie’s laboratory in 1927, underlining the large number of women to be found working in a single scientific research laboratory that was also run by a woman (Geestelink 1927). It is interesting to look back at the large number of female researchers who worked with Marie Curie, and consider her role in inspiring and encouraging women to embrace a scientific career despite the difficulties and prejudices of the time.

Marie Curie, A Woman at the Head of an Interdisciplinary Institute
Following Pierre Curie’s death, by force of circumstance, Marie Curie took over as director of their laboratory in rue Cuvier. She henceforth played an increasingly important role in the French and international scientific communities. Along with other French scientists, she supported a policy for the development of scientific research and looked for ways both to develop her laboratory and to recruit more researchers. In 1908, the Pasteur Institute and the University of Paris decided to build a new multidisciplinary institute for research and for applications of radioactivity; it was called the Institut du Radium (Radium Institute) and had two sections, one devoted to physical and chemical studies (the Curie Pavilion, directed by Marie Curie), and the other concentrating on biological and medical applications (the Pasteur Pavilion, run by Claudius Regaud).

Curie’s laboratory . . . was at the heart of a scientific, industrial, instrumental, and medical network.

The Institut du Radium was completed in 1914, but not until after the First World War was it able to operate under normal conditions. During the 1920s it was one of the four main laboratories dominating the domain of radioactivity research, along with the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, directed by Ernest Rutherford, the Institut für Radiumforschung in Vienna, directed by Stefan Meyer, and the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut für Chemie in Berlin, under the direction of Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner. In this domain, there were different ideas, concepts, and experimental practices concerning the application of radioactive elements. Each institute had its own approach. For instance, Rutherford’s collaborators had at first concentrated mainly on the study of physical radioactive changes and on the mechanisms of disintegration of radioactive elements. Then they began to progressively study atomic structure (Hughes 2002). In Berlin, the researchers specialized in the identification of new radioactive elements and in the physical study of their emissions. At Curie’s laboratory, part of the work was devoted to the study of the physical and chemical properties of radioactive elements, with particular focus on the development of different applications for these elements, such as in the field of medicine and in industrial production.

The Radium Institute in Paris, completed in 1914.

So it was its numerous different activities that made Curie’s laboratory stand out from the crowd; it was at the heart of a scientific, industrial, instrumental, and medical network (Boudia 2001). The Curies had begun to build this network together, but it was Marie’s impetus which allowed it to grow. The project to cover different areas of radioactivity stemmed from her decision to specialize in the purification and study of radioactive substances. For researchers in radioactivity, getting hold of radioactive substances was a constant concern. There was a profound lack of many radio-elements on the market and industrial production was difficult to set up. Those which were produced were extremely expensive, often well beyond the means of laboratories. Furthermore, their state of purification was often below the quality required by the research teams. The Curie laboratory helped to develop and adapt chemical treatments for each mineral type. Its researchers made instruments which were specially adapted to industrial needs and to mineral prospecting. The large amount of correspondence between the laboratory and its factories bears witness to the extensive circulation of personnel, radioactive substances, and instruments. Marie Curie was also in regular contact with factories abroad, such as St. Joachimstal in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, and with the Union Minière du Haut Katanga (Belgium at that time).

Marie Curie’s strategy for acquiring and purifying radioactive sources was not only a legitimate one; it was also effective. It allowed her laboratory to position itself in the world of radioactivity research as the leader in the preparation of radioactive sources, in terms of both quantity and quality. It also enabled it to become the reference for radioactivity metrology. Indeed, in 1910, an international commission made up of leading radioactivity researchers adopted the curie, suggested by Marie Curie and André Debierne, as the international unit of measurement for radioactivity and tasked Marie with establishing an international radium standard which would serve to calibrate different radioactive sources for both research and radioactivity applications.

In the two years immediately after the war there was a large majority of women at the laboratory.

The Women in the Curie Laboratory
In the large laboratory that she had succeeded in building, Marie Curie made considerable room for women. Between 1904 (when the laboratory was created in rue Cuvier) and 1934 (the year of Marie Curie’s death), 47 women worked there as researchers. Information about these women, from the archives in the Curie Museum in Paris, although fragmented, nevertheless provides us with a certain amount of information about them and their work. Regarding geographical origin (see table below), the data shows that 15 (perhaps 19) of the women came from France and 25 from abroad. For the remainder, some doubt still remains. More than a quarter came from eastern Europe, Poland, and Russia in particular. A significant group came from Scandinavian countries (the first being Norwegian Ellen Gleditsch and Swede Eva Ramstedt). When they arrived at the laboratory, nine women held doctorate degrees (in physics or chemistry and one in medicine). Ten others had science, physics, or chemistry degrees (two or three of these later went on to complete doctorates), four were teachers who had qualified at the École Normale de Jeunes Filles de Sèvres (where Marie Curie had taught between 1900 and 1904), two were engineers, and at least one had a degree in pharmacy.

The Women in Marie Curie’s Laboratory: Where They Came from and How Long They Stayed

Name

Stay in Curie Lab

Geographic origin

Brooks, Harriet

1906–1907

Canada

Gleditsch, Ellen

1907–1912 ; 1919–1920, short stays in 1924–1926

Norway

Blanquies, Lucie

1908–1910

France

Leslie, May Sybill

1909–1911

UK

Ramstedt, Eva

1910–1911

Sweden

Szmidt, Jadwiga

1910–1911

Russia

Gotz, Iren

1911–1912

Hungary

Wrangell

1911–1912

Veil, Suzanne

1912–1914

France

Ascouvart

1913–1914

France

Molinier, Madeleine Née Monin

1917–1921

France

Cotelle, Sonia Née Slobodkine

1919–1945

Poland

Galabert ,Renée

1919–1933

France

Holwech, Randi

1919–1920

Norway

Joliot Curie, Irène

1919–1956

France

Klein, Marthe

1919–1920

France

Maracineanu, Stefania

1919–1920

Romania

Weil, Jeanne Samuel

1922–1925

France

Chamie, Catherine

1919–1920

Russia

Lattes, Jeanne Samuel

1921–1949

France

Brunschvicg, Weill Adrienne

1921–1928

France

Weinbach, Lucienne

1923–1926

France

Garcynska, Janine

1923–1924

Poland

Wisner

1924–1925

France ?

Dedichen, Sonja

1924–1925

Norway

Dorabialska, Alicja

1925–1926

Poland

Gourvitch, R.

1925–1927

Lithuania

Pilorget, Germaine

1928–1930

Switzerland ?

Montel, Eliane

1925–1927

France

Rona, Elisabeth

1925–1926

(Hungary), Vienna

Larche

1926–1931

France ?

Waldbauer-Patton, I. Jocelyn

1926

Canada

Leblanc, Marthe

1927–1929

France ?

Pompei, Angèle

1927–1928

France

Archinard, Isabelle

1928–1932

Suisse

Perey, Marguerite

1928–1937

France

Grabianka, Seweryn

1929–1934

Poland

Korvezee, A.

1929–1941

Netherlands

Lub Willy, A.

1930–1931

Netherlands

Marques, Branca Edmée

1930–1933

Portugal

Wibratte, Marie-Henriette

1931–1934

France

Macaigne, R.

1931–1936

France ?

Manteuffel, I.

1931–1933

Poland

Prebil, Alice

1932–1934

Yugoslavia

Baschwitz-Levy, A.

1932–1933

Blau, Marietta

1932–1933

Austria

Emmanuel Zavizziano, Hélène

1933–1939

Greece

The place and role of women in the laboratory changed over time. The First World War saw a break both in the number and in the composition and status of the women. The cramped premises at rue Cuvier restricted the number of researchers. Of the 58 who worked at the laboratory between 1904 and 1914, 10 were women. The majority of them were foreigners (6 out of 10). All of them, with the exception of Ellen Gleditsch, remained for one or two years. They either had grants from their home countries or else worked for free. After the war, the laboratory’s female population grew. In the two years immediately after the war there was a large majority of women at the laboratory, with their number later stabilizing at around 30 percent. When the laboratory moved to the new Institut du Radium, it was able to hold a larger number of researchers, with a regular turnover in personnel. Marie Curie “made do,” finding intermediary and temporary solutions which required constant renegotiation with the administration and with manufacturers.

Marie Curie with her daughter Irène and other researchers in her laboratory at the Edith Cavell Hospital in 1914.

As of 1907, the Curie laboratory had at its disposal a number of specific grants (the Carnegie-Curie grants) which were given to a certain number of researchers—between two and six per year. For several years, about one-third of the personnel was essentially working for free. After the war, the number of grants increased. In addition to the Carnegie-Curie grants, were added the Commercy, Rockefeller, Rothschild, and Lazard grants, named after their patrons. Toward the end of the 1920s, the Caisse des Recherches Scientifiques and the Caisse Nationale des Sciences provided significant funding. While several women benefited from these grants and funds, they did so in a smaller proportion than their male counterparts (between 1920 and 1934, women obtained less than 20 percent of the grants). Women probably encountered the same difficulties as foreigners from certain geographical zones (eastern European countries in particular).

Irène Joliot-Curie and husband Frédéric Joliot in their laboratory at the Radium Institute, 1935.

Institutional resistance to the professional integration of women could be seen in the virtual absence of regular positions: aside from Irène Curie, no woman held the position of assistant. Generally speaking, the lack of funding made it very hard to bring young scientists into science faculties, but a relatively permanent group of researchers was formed and was able to ensure continuity at the laboratory. This group comprised 10 or so personnel, half of whom were women: Marie, Irène Curie, Catherine Chamié (Syro-Russian), Sonia Cotelle (Polish, née Slobodkine), and Renée Galabert. The last two had degrees in chemistry and joined the laboratory in 1919. Sonia Cotelle specialized in the preparation of radioactive sources. In 1926, she was appointed to a position which was created as part of a “special framework” for the Curie laboratory by the science faculties. Renée Galabert quickly took over the management of the measurements department. She left the laboratory in 1933 to take up a post as technical director at a radioactive elements factory. Catherine Chamié completed a doctorate in physics at the University of Geneva in 1913, and continued her scientific work as a mathematics assistant at the University of Odessa. She joined the laboratory in 1921, and then benefited from several grants before being compensated from the funds of the measurements department. These women had real scientific careers, similar to those of other researchers at the Curie laboratory.

Marie Curie and four of her students (sometime between 1910 and 1914, U.S. Library of Congress).

The work done by these women was a reflection of the laboratory’s various activities. Many of them worked in physics and chemistry, studying, for example, the characteristics of radioactive elements and their radiation and determining procedures for chemical treatments or for methods of measurement. They were particularly involved in two areas: the preparation of radioactive sources and certification (metrology). Numerous women were specialists in what was later to be called radiochemistry. This was true of the Curies, mother and daughter, and Ellen Gleditsch, Sonia Cotelle, and Marguerite Perey. This was not an occupation reserved for women however: Bertram Boltwood at Yale and the two Nobel Prize winners Otto Hahn in Berlin and Otto Hönigschmit in Vienna won acclaim as radiochemists. In addition, the laboratory’s measurements department was usually run by women. Created in 1911, this department acted as a national metrological institution in the field of radioactivity. Its activity focused on the calibration and certification of sources. Sonia Cotelle, Renée Galabert, and Catherine Chamié were all in charge of this department at some point. In other laboratories (UK, USA, Germany, and Austria), metrology was run by men.

Proportion of Women in
Marie Curie's Laboratory

Year

Rate of Women

1904–1905

1/9 (11.4%)

1905–1906

1/8 (12.5%)

1906–1907

2/10 (20%)

1907–1908

2/11 (18.2%)

1908–1909

3/18 (16.7%)

1909–1910

4/18 (22.2%)

1910–1911

5/22 (22.7%)

1911–1912

4/20 (20%)

1912–1913

2/15 (13,3%)

1913–1914

3/15 (20%)

1919–1920

9/14 (64.3%)

1920–1921

10/19 (52.6%)

1921–1922

5/14 (35.7%)

1922–1923

7/28 (25%)

1923–1924

9/31 (29%)

1924–1925

12/35 (34.2%)

1925–1926

14/37 (37.8 %)

1926–1927

11/31 (35.5%)

1927–1928

10/31 (32.2%)

1928–1929

10/33 (30.3%)

1929–1930

11/37 (29.7%)

1930–1931

12/44 (27.3%)

1931–1932

14/43 (32.5%)

1932–1933

16/53 (30.2%)

1933–1934

13/47 (27.7%)

The example of the Curie laboratory demonstrates the variety of jobs held by women in the field of radioactivity. It is clear that these women were not simply given the most repetitive and boring tasks, with the real research roles given to men. (e.g., in astronomy, women were employed to sort through thousands of negatives, a task deemed to require qualities proper to women—patience and perseverance.) Their significant presence is probably the result of several factors. Marie Curie was a role model for many young women who aspired to careers in science. She was not a feminist (few female scientists in France were), nor did she develop any policies in favor of women, but she did represent an example to follow. Furthermore, the field of radioactivity sciences was an emerging one; it was not particularly institutionalized, and as it offered few career opportunities, it was initially more accessible to women.

Soraya Boudia is an associate professor in Science and Technology Studies at the University of Strasbourg. She was the director of the Curie Museum in Paris from 1999 to 2003. She published several papers on the history of radioactivity and on the international regulation of radiation risks. She is preparing a new book on the history of the radiation low doses.